


Starring Sharon Davis and Todd Davis

by tablelamp



Category: WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Being in the Hex, Gen, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Psychological Trauma, Series events from a Westview resident POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tablelamp/pseuds/tablelamp
Summary: Sharon and her husband were walking home from the cafe when the pain hit.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

Sharon and her husband were walking home from the café when the pain hit.

There was nothing unusual about the afternoon until then. She'd gone to the café downtown to meet Todd; once a week, she took a break from her practice and he took a break from his firm and they met for coffee.

As they were leaving, walking in the same direction for as long as they could, Todd said, "If only we could get some new businesses interested. With a little extra money, downtown Westview could be really nice!"

"It is nice," Sharon said. They'd had this conversation before and would probably have it at least a few more times. "It's just a little...tired, that's all."

"Well, I wish somebody would wake it up," Todd said. "Renovations don't happen on their own."

Sharon opened her mouth to reply, but she was suddenly overwhelmed by intense emotion. One moment, she was fine, and the next, everything inside her felt like it was screaming. She reached out for Todd, grabbing his arm to steady herself. 

_He's gone. He'll never see our home. He'll never grow old._ But the thoughts that ran through her head didn't feel right somehow, almost as if they weren't hers. Who was the 'he' she was thinking of? Todd was right here. He'd come home tonight. She looked at him to make sure he was all right, and saw how pale he was. _Would_ he be all right? Maybe he was having a heart attack. She took his pulse.

"I'm not sick," Todd said hoarsely. Another wave of pain crashed over them, and Todd reached for her. "Can you feel that?"

Sharon nodded, and as she looked up, she saw Sarah Proctor further down the street, bracing herself against her car. She also looked like she was in pain. "Something's wrong."

The screaming intensified, and as Sharon tried to stay standing, she saw a wave of what looked like fire approaching them. It seemed to be draining the color from everything it passed, leaving everything in its path grayscale.

"Oh shit," Todd said.

Sharon took his hand, not sure what the fire was but sure they needed to get away from it. "Run!"

They made it half a block before the shock wave hit them.

***

The first thing Sharon noticed was that she was standing, even though she was fairly sure the shock wave had knocked her down. The second thing was that she and everything around her was in shades of gray, and that she was wearing an extremely full-skirted dress that had nothing to do with the outfit she'd been wearing just a few minutes ago. She tried to turn to look at Todd, but she couldn't move. She tried to call out to him but she couldn't talk either. Was she having some sort of neurological event--a stroke, maybe? That wouldn't account for the change of clothes, but she couldn't move. She couldn't _speak._

 _Todd,_ she called, but only in her mind.

There was a sudden suffocating pressure in her head, a burst of emotional pain like the pain she'd felt before the world had gone wrong, and then she felt herself turn to Todd. She wasn't choosing to move. Something else was moving her. What was this? What was happening? Todd looked different too, in a three-piece suit and horn-rimmed glasses.

"Arthur? Doris?" a woman called.

Sharon didn't know who Doris was, but she felt herself turn to see...was that Sarah? It was, but also entirely gray, and very retro to boot. She tried to call Sarah's name, but instead she felt her lips move into a smile.

"Dottie Jones, as I live and breathe!" Sharon heard her voice say, tone chipper and affected, like no voice that had ever come out of her before. How could she be talking and not know what she was going to say, or even what she was going to sound like?

"And just what is your husband doing playing hooky from work?" Sarah said in exactly the same tone of voice. So...Sarah was Dottie? Was Sharon supposed to be Doris? Sharon squirmed, trapped in her mind, trying to get out from beneath that suffocating feeling that wouldn't give her control. That only made it push down on her harder, which would have made Sharon cry out in pain if there had been any way left for her to do that.

 _You are Doris,_ the suffocating feeling told her. _Behave._

Sharon gave it a shove, and for a moment, her concentration stuck enough that her voice came back under her control, and she said, "No."

Sarah didn't look as though she understood. "No?"

 _I can't move. I can't talk. Sarah, call someone! Call for help!_ But the moment had passed, and her voice was out of her control again.

"I'm not playing hooky," Todd said jovially, his voice sounding just as wrong as everyone else's. "Just taking the little woman to lunch."

It couldn't be Todd talking either; he would never call her 'the little woman' in a hundred years. Sharon's body turned her to look at Todd, eyes moving without her direction, mouth still stretched in a smile.

"Dottie's right. I should get back to the office," Todd said, and for just a second, Sharon could see the panic behind his eyes. Whatever was controlling her was controlling him too. She wanted to reach for him, beg him not to leave her in whatever the hell had become of their town.

Instead, her hand patted his arm (she was wearing gloves, how was she wearing gloves?), and her voice cooed, "Of course, honey. I'll have something special for dinner when you get home."

"Can't wait!" Todd said, leaning over to give her a quick peck on the cheek. His hands twitched, caught Sharon's arm, and Sharon knew Todd had control of his hands just as she'd had control of her voice; he didn't want to leave her either. _Touch his hand. Touch his hand!_ she thought fiercely, concentrating her entire mind on it, and her hand flopped over to rest on Todd's for a moment. Sharon had to believe he understood.

The crushing feeling of control descended again, pushing her even further back from her body, and giving her a strong sensation of _don't do that again._ She could only watch in a daze as Todd turned to leave, and Sarah/Dottie took her arm, chatting away about something Sharon couldn't hear through the ringing in her ears.

Not that that stopped her body from following and her voice from answering.


	2. Chapter 2

Whatever was happening was like the worst amusement park ride in existence, Sharon thought. Except the cart riding up and down the track was Sharon's own body.

It was hard not to panic about whatever it was that was controlling her body and speaking through her. For now, nothing it had made her do had been terrible, but Sharon wasn't sure she could rely on its kindness forever. She didn't know if it was kind. She didn't know what it was, and there was nothing she could do to find out because she couldn't move and she couldn't talk.

But her initial burst of fear-fueled adrenaline wore off, and she couldn't seem to regain control of her body, so eventually, Sharon fell back and found herself watching as her hands fixed dinner and her voice hummed "Nobody Loves the Ump." She seemed to be making roast beef, potatoes au gratin, and some kind of marshmallow salad, though she realized "marshmallow salad" might be a contradiction in terms. Whatever it was, her hands knew how to make it even though she didn't. At one point, Sharon's finger went into the marshmallow salad and brought back a bit of it to taste. Sharon thought it was much too sweet, but her voice said a contented 'mmm' and her hands added more marshmallows.

It was only when Sharon found herself reaching for a jar of peanut butter (possibly to make dessert?) that she began to panic again. _Todd's allergic. If you put this in the food it will kill him! Please stop!_ Her hand reached for the jar, but with intense concentration, she forced it back. Her hand reached for the jar again, and she jerked it back again, using every bit of energy she had. _I don't know who you are but I won't let you hurt him!_

Her body stood there for a moment, arm frozen in place, and Sharon waited to see what it would do next. Then her hand closed the cupboard door and smoothed her hair, and Sharon allowed herself a moment to relax. Whatever was in control of them might be able to hear her thoughts, and it didn't seem to want to hurt them, at least for now.

But if she'd thought fixing dinner on autopilot was odd, nothing prepared her for her husband's arrival, which he announced by calling, "Honey, I'm home!"

"Just in time, too!" she heard her own voice call back, with that artificial tone that made her sound like she was selling corn flakes. "The roast beef's resting!"

"Resting, huh?" Todd said, setting down his briefcase and taking off his hat. "Sounds good to me."

And then, from nowhere, there was _laughter._ Not just one person laughing, either, but what sounded like an entire audience. But how could there be an audience? They were at home, with no one...

...with no one watching? Someone was clearly watching; someone had to be watching in order to make them do these things. It all made a horrible kind of sense now--the fact that everything was in black and white, the old-fashioned clothes and words they were saying, the laughter from nowhere. Even the song her voice had been humming was from _I Love Lucy_.

Whatever was controlling them liked old TV. It liked old TV so much that it had decided to make some of its own.

That was why it had let her win about the peanut butter. Nobody could have serious allergies on a...what was this...comedy show from the 1950s? Probably nobody could die. At least, Sharon hoped that was true. Nobody ever died on _I Love Lucy_ , did they?

Sharon's body sat down at the dinner table, and she realized with a start that, while she'd been thinking all this, her voice and Todd's had kept talking to each other, and their bodies had kept moving. Dissociation might be a psychological defense mechanism, but she didn't have that luxury right now. She needed to keep track of what was happening around her so she could piece together as much of this puzzle as possible. 

As Sharon's body spread her napkin on her lap and prepared to eat, she felt her face smile at Arthur, and thought how much she loved that man.

Todd. Not Arthur. His name was Todd.

***

_The scientists scurried back and forth from table to table, apparently working on a number of electronics projects below. She looked down through the window, then looked at Hayward. "Why are you showing me this?"_

_"You said you wanted to see the body," Hayward said._

_Wanda looked down, and suddenly what she was seeing pulled together into one larger, horrifying picture. On one table was an arm; on another a foot, on another his head. It was **him.** They were taking him apart. Her hands went flat against the glass, trying to push through it, to get to him._

_"Stop it," she said, tears welling in her eyes. "Make them stop it!"_

_Then, Vision's eyes opened and he looked at her._

_"Wanda," he whispered. "Help me."_

_She opened her mouth to scream--_

\--and she was screaming, she was lying in bed screaming and screaming, but nothing would come out of her mouth. They couldn't just leave him alone; they took him apart. She could feel the tears rolling down her face. It hurt so much, and she was lost, she was so lost. She didn't know how to bear it.

What finally brought her back to her immediate surroundings was the sound of someone else's ragged breaths. Who was it? Vision? Arthur? _Todd._ That was how Todd sounded when he was crying. Had they both had nightmares? Why? Who would set them up in a 1950s TV show only to give them terrifying nightmares?

Unless it wasn't a sitcom. Unless whatever was controlling them liked _The Twilight Zone_ better.

No. Sharon wasn't going to think about that now. Everything always seemed worse in the middle of the night. She'd get some sleep and things would look better in the morning. 

On the other hand, did she really want sleep if that was what it was going to be like?

In the end, it didn't matter what she wanted. Her body didn't sleep the rest of the night.


	3. Chapter 3

Eventually, morning came, and Sharon's body (or Doris, as Sharon had begun thinking of the combination of her body and whatever was making it move) got her out of bed, dressed, and perfectly made up (although in black and white, Sharon couldn't see the difference between the two shades of lipstick Doris debated about wearing). In a way, Sharon was relieved not to have to do all this herself; she'd been awake since three in the morning and was completely exhausted. Doris was downstairs making breakfast and pouring coffee by the time Todd came down.

"Morning, honey," he said, picking up the newspaper that sat at his place on the kitchen table even though Sharon hadn't brought it in for him. "Don't forget, we have dinner with the Visions tonight."

Vision. That was the name of the robot man from the nightmare. Sharon wanted to know more, and apparently, so did Doris. "The Visions, dear?"

"New employee of mine," Todd said. "He's a hard worker...a real machine." There was that laughter from nowhere again. Sharon had hoped they weren't being watched right now. "Haven't met his wife yet but he's always talking about how great she is."

"Then I'm sure she is," Doris said. Sharon rolled her eyes inwardly, but of course her actual eyes didn't do anything. Doris poured coffee into Todd's mug. 

He took a quick drink and picked up a piece of toast. "Better get to work. Lots of numbers to crunch."

Doris tutted, her hands on her hips. "You haven't touched your eggs!" 

Todd approached and rested his hands on Sharon's arms, kissing Sharon on the forehead. "I'll see you after work." But he didn't leave.

Doris's eyes were already looking at Todd, but Sharon tried to look deeper. Todd was trying to stay with her, maybe trying to tell her something.

"I love you," he said.

Sharon felt as though both she and Doris were replying when she said, "I love you too."

Todd gave her shoulders a little squeeze. "We'll be okay."

And Sharon, speaking alone, answered, "Okay." From their invisible distance, the audience made an 'aww' sound, which Sharon wasn't sure sitcom audiences had done in the 50s.

Todd looked closely at her, and he must've seen Sharon in there, because he nodded and released her arms. He clearly wanted to say more, but whatever was making him act like Arthur wouldn't let him. "Have a good day!"

"You too!" Doris said with a smile. "Crunch those numbers!" The audience laughed.

Meanwhile, Sharon was reviewing what had just happened. Todd had managed to break through Arthur's façade and say and do what he'd wanted. If Sharon could work out a way to do that, maybe she could get her body back under her control. Sharon had been fighting the outside control with as much strength as she could gather, but maybe that wasn't the most effective approach. Maybe if she acted more like Doris, she would be able to move and talk on her own.

But there were dangers in that too. If she became more like Doris, what if she couldn't stop? If this entity controlling them wanted her to be Doris, would it push her so far in that direction that she couldn't get herself back when it finally let go? She had to assume it would let go at some point, when it got bored or moved on to another group of people to play with. She refused to consider the alternative.

No, she decided. She would only try acting like Doris if everything else failed. She had prevented Todd from being served peanut butter, so what she was doing was working. She just had to figure out how to do it more often.

***

The first clue Sharon had that time passed strangely in a sitcom was when she'd been arm-deep in soap suds from the breakfast dishes and suddenly found that it was dark outside, and that she was dressed for dinner. The dishes weren't even in the drying rack anymore.

Her husband held out his arm to her, and Arthur said, "Ready to go?"

Doris took Arthur's arm. "Of course."

Sharon thought it was too bad they hadn't been asked to join in with this elaborate roleplaying exercise. Under different circumstances, pretending to live in a sitcom might be fun. 

Vision, to Sharon's surprise, was no robot at all, but an affable blond British man. It was his wife who surprised them.

"Wanda!" Vision said, after discovering Wanda had covered Todd's eyes to surprise him.

As the sitcom shenanigans began to unfold around them, Sharon stopped paying attention. Wanda. Wanda and Vision. Like the nightmares from last night. She had _been_ Wanda, and the reflection she'd seen in the glass pane in the nightmare matched the woman she saw in front of her. But what did it mean? Vision was obviously alive, and this Wanda didn't seem grief-stricken. Had she and her robot friend been trapped in this sitcom too? And why wasn't he a robot? Maybe if she could talk to Wanda alone, she could break through and ask if Wanda was stuck like she and Todd were.

But whatever was controlling them didn't want Sharon to get to Wanda. Vision came up with ever more elaborate excuses why Doris shouldn't go into the kitchen (he also kept calling her Mr. Hart's 'dear lady wife,' which Sharon found irritating). Was Vision controlling this? Was Wanda? What were they hiding? They were clearly hiding something, because Vision was an objectively terrible liar. Sharon knew Todd must be noticing the same thing. If only she could talk to him and they could compare notes about what was happening to them!

Worse, the Doris character was beginning to have her own feelings. When Doris complained of feeling woozy, Sharon felt it too, even though there was no reason for either of them to feel faint. The feeling of dizziness vanished as soon as Wanda said dinner was ready, so Sharon suspected it had been more for plot purposes than anything else.

Sharon tried to find out more about Wanda and Vision, but the questions that came out of Doris's mouth made her sound like a Gladys Kravitz-level busybody. She could tell Todd understood, and was trying to ask questions of his own, but Wanda and Vision didn't seem to know the answers. That was strange. She and Todd were being controlled, but it hadn't made them forget their pasts, and Arthur and Doris didn't seem to have forgotten their fake pasts either. She could see Todd emerging from behind Arthur when he pounded the table and demanded to know why Wanda and Vision had come here. Was his anger part of the Arthur character, or did he suspect them of being behind all this?

And then he began to choke, though he didn’t have any food in his mouth.

Seconds turned to minutes. Sharon tried to get to her feet, to go to Todd, to give him the Heimlich, to do anything, but she couldn't move, and her face kept smiling inanely as though nothing was happening. Wanda and Vision were staring at each other, having some sort of unspoken conversation. What were they doing? Why didn't they help her husband? 

_They're deciding whether or not to let him die,_ Sharon thought, a chill sliding down her back. He'd asked questions they didn't want to answer, and somehow, they were killing him. She had to stop this. What could she do? What would Doris do?

"Oh, Arthur, stop it," Doris was saying, as though he were making some sort of joke and not dying in front of them.

Stop it. Perfect. Sharon focused on those two words, on saying those two words, and her voice slipped back under her control. Her face stayed in a ludicrous smile, even laughing a little, and she still couldn't move, but she could say, "Stop it," over and over again. Ever so slightly, she shifted the focus of her eyes and turned her head so that she was looking at Wanda instead of her husband, repeating "stop it" the whole time.

"Vision," Wanda said in the voice Sharon had heard in her nightmares, "help him."

Vision did something to stop Todd from choking, but Sharon couldn't see what it was from where she was sitting. Todd coughed and returned to his seat at the table, and as he sat down, Sharon felt the weight of control press down harder on her, so hard that she felt as though she were looking out her eyes from the very end of a long tunnel. There was grief, but there was a despondency too, a feeling that maybe giving up control was the best thing.

These weren't her feelings. They had never been her feelings, not from that first moment when thoughts had come into her mind that weren't hers. It had felt the same in the nightmares, looking down, watching as they took apart Vision, who she loved. All these feelings came from the same person--Wanda. Somehow Wanda was making them feel these things. And if she could make them feel things, could she also make them do things?

 _I won't stop fighting,_ Sharon thought, in case Wanda was listening. _I won't ever let you have full control of me, no matter how tired I am or how hard you try to hold me down._

She hoped that was true. She hoped Wanda wasn't too powerful to resist.


	4. Chapter 4

After the disastrous dinner with Wanda and Vision, either there was another time shift or Sharon blacked out until the next afternoon. She hoped it was the former.

Doris was busy thinking a stream of sitcom things--something about a fundraiser for the elementary school?--and was already dressed and ready to go out. As Doris adjusted her hat, Sharon noticed something in the mirror over her shoulder. Todd was still in bed, and he wasn't moving.

_Turn around,_ she urged Doris. _Look at Arthur._

Doris turned to look at Arthur, and Sharon took in as much information as she could. He was breathing, so still alive, but he was staring at the ceiling and not otherwise moving. Breaths deep and even, so not in any particular distress, as far as Sharon could tell. He just...wasn't there.

It was because of dinner. Of course it was. Todd had too much control over his own words and actions, and Wanda hadn't liked that. She'd spared his life, which was better than the alternative, but apparently there were other ways of not having to deal with him. Like leaving him trapped semi-conscious in his room.

"I'll be home for dinner," Doris called. Somehow Sharon didn't think Todd would be available.

Doris arrived at the middle of town for the talent show much too early, so she politely took a seat at a table toward the back. But someone else was early too.

"Hello, dear," a dark-haired woman said, sliding into a chair on the opposite side of the table. Sharon recognized her as the woman who had inexplicably delivered Wanda a pineapple yesterday. She didn't know this woman from Westview; maybe she was new in town. "Mrs. Hart, isn't it?"

"Doris," Doris said. "I don't believe we've met."

"Oh, of course! Where are my manners? I'm Agnes, Wanda's next-door neighbor," Agnes said with a bright smile.

"Nice to meet you, Agnes," Doris said. "Are you here to cheer Wanda on?"

"Naturally," Agnes said. She narrowed her eyes, looking so thoughtful that Sharon wondered if Agnes could see her. "But there's something I want to try first."

It was as though a wall had lifted. Sharon blinked, and then realized she'd _blinked._ She could move!

"What just happened?" Sharon asked, and was startled by the sound of her own voice. She was _talking_ again! She waved her hands experimentally, making sure they could move, and then slumped in her chair--well, as much as the foundation garments she had on would let her slump, anyway. "Oh! Oh, that is so much better." She looked at Agnes. "Did you do that? Thank you."

"All part of the service," Agnes said cheerily, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "What was going on in there before you got out?"

Sharon shuddered. "It was awful. She...she made somebody..." Sharon gestured to her black and white self. "There was someone else who looks like this and fits in her television show controlling me. And Todd! Can you come to my house and wake up my husband?"

"When you say she," Agnes said, eyes narrowing, "you mean Wanda?"

Sharon nodded. "She almost killed Todd yesterday when he asked too many questions."

"I thought you said he was under her control," Agnes said.

"He is, but...you can get out a little if you really try," Sharon said. She could breathe again. It was such a relief not to have someone else making her move and talk.

"Interesting," Agnes said.

"I thought I was going to be like that forever." Sharon sighed, then looked at Agnes. "Will you help us?"

Agnes made a gentle _tsk_ sound. "Search and rescue isn't really my area."

Sharon stared at her. "I don't understand."

"I just needed to confirm it was Red over there who was in charge," Agnes said. "I can't have you giving up the game too soon and ruining my plans."

"No," Sharon said, feeling her stomach lurch. Surely Agnes wasn't going to free her just to lock her up again. "No, please. I can play along!"

"I'm afraid you'll have to," Agnes said. 

Just as suddenly as she had gone, Doris was back, and so was the overwhelming feeling of pain and regret that came with her.

_No!_ Sharon screamed, but her voice was gone. _Let me out!_

"Sorry, sweetie," Agnes said, as if she'd heard Sharon. Maybe she had. "You'll have to wait your turn."

Sharon had grown up thinking superheroes were there to help. She'd never considered that some of them would trap an entire town for their amusement and that others simply wouldn't care. _Captain America would never have done this._

Agnes laughed uncomfortably loud and long. "Well, one thing I'm definitely not is Captain America."

"I just can't wait for this talent show, can you?" Doris said with her typical mannered enthusiasm.

"There really are two of you in there," Agnes said, looking amused. "How marvelous."

Doris never stopped smiling. "I don't know what you mean."

"Then never mind," Agnes said with a shrug. "Some people aren't important enough to talk about. They just don't have any...influence." Agnes winked knowingly at Doris, but Sharon knew the words were meant for her.

There was nothing Sharon could say to that. There was nothing she could say at all.


End file.
